Encounters of a Peaceful Kind
by L u c i d - C o m p l e x
Summary: ItaKaka. MinaKushi. A series of contiguous oneshots following the lives of certain members of the Uchiha, Namikaze, and Hatake. A slow-blossoming relationship between Itachi and Kakashi develops. Chaos melts into peace, which lasts blissfully until the world is shattered and chaotic once again. These are the tales of peacetime, after the Third Shinobi World War. Slightly AU. WIP.


**ღ**** Encounters of a Peaceful Kind ****ღ**

Ahh yes, I found fanfiction calling my name once again.

Stories stir in my mind quite often, but seldom do they actually make their way to the page. This one is lucky enough to survive the superfine filter. [If only because it's a series of oneshots. Ish.]

I'm notorious for not finishing anything I've started, but let's take this journey together, shall we? Perhaps if I make it to a second chapter, I'll be more confident in my abilities to continue a large project.

Because I _do _want to write for other fandoms. Still thinking about Pokémon . . . still want to write for Death Note, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pandora Hearts, and maybe Jack the Giant Slayer [muahaha].

Without further adieu . . . _Encounters of a Peaceful Kind!_

ItaKaka. MinaKushi. A series of contiguous oneshots following the lives of certain members of the Uchiha, Namikaze, and Hatake. A slow-blossoming relationship between Itachi and Kakashi develops. Chaos melts into peace, which lasts blissfully until the world is shattered and chaotic once again. These are the tales of peacetime, after the Third Shinobi World War. Slightly AU. WIP. Also featuring Sakumo, and the lovely Shisui.

As for the length, I'm going for chapters around 1,000 words a piece. Also, please disregard any discrepancies betwixt my story and canon – I have long since abandoned reading and/or watching the Naruto series, though I do like to dawdle around the fandom, as do most of you, I am sure, parce que vous êtes ici. So since I discovered this via fanfiction, **[spoilers]** what's this about Obito being Tobi?! WTF? Grahh, everything I knew about Naruto was a lie . . .

So very, very unbeta'd.

[I've also discovered an odd fic about Shisui in the "Afterlife" on my computer? ShisuiItachi anyone? Haha. For some reason, I've always been a fan of that pairing. . . .]

**ღ Chapter 1 : Begin ღ**

A few weeks after the death of his distant cousin, Uchiha Obito, Itachi found himself summoned to take an infiltration mission. It was tragic, really, as it was an infiltration mission that got Obito killed, and Itachi had no predilection to take a mission where he knew his life and others' were at stake. However, such was the life of a ninja.

In any case, Obito wasn't the only Uchiha to be killed in action. The family, with innumerable Uchiha enrolled in the ninja force, suffered many losses. Obito's death was just another in the increasingly frequent trend, and the Uchiha found themselves more often than ever clad in official Uchiha grieving wear. Every week found at least one Uchiha dead, and on a bad week, the family lost three crucial assets to the Uchiha Police Force (who were transferred into the ninja force for extra support at the start of the war).

It wasn't just the Uchiha who had lost many loved ones – the Hyuuga were in a similar position, as were many of the other clans in Konoha. It was said that the Yamanaka and Akimichi clans were almost extinct.

Itachi figured he should be lucky, since both his mother and his father were still alive, and even his favorite cousin and best friend Shisui was vibrant with life. Though after Obito's death, Shisui went to one person, and one person only to share openly in his grieving. It was then Itachi learned about the close bond between Shisui and Obito.

Itachi didn't really know Obito that well, though from what he could glean from Shisui, his cousin was the teammate of the heir and prodigy of Konoha's White Fang. Though Itachi had never met the kid, he oftentimes found himself compared to the Hatake by the adult population of Konoha. Shisui even mentioned this, though waved it off with a flick of his wrists even though his face was red and his eyes were still streaming tears that were uncharacteristic in the Uchiha lineage.

That was another thing Shisui had in common with Obito, apparently. They were two of the few Uchiha that actually showed their emotions.

Itachi figured Shisui must have been crying doubly hard, to sort of channel the tears Shisui knew Obito would be crying.

In the end, Itachi was bitter. He was bitter, and tired, and just a bit angry. He liked to think that this war would end, tomorrow or as close to tomorrow as possible, preferably, but his summons to the Hokage Tower by the Sandaime Hokage and the reason for his summons being the dire war being fought just outside Hi no Kuni's borders . . . well, needless to say he was in for another bloody mission. The influx of dead bodies was just not letting up, and more and more blood was spilled every day.

He tightened his fists slightly, his gloves squeaking with the motion. He walked forward with purpose, and if Shisui saw him now, he would probably be laughing. His best friend would surely imagine the younger boy with a black storm cloud swirling around like a visible aura, or something insane like that. He was not fond of Shisui's rather comical imagination.

His dark eyes were focused and sharp as he ignored the hustle and bustle of a war-time Konoha economy.

The path was a winding one, and if Itachi was honest with himself, he took the scenic route on purpose. The summons was for 0800 hours, and it was only 0730 hours, leaving the preteen half an hour to ruminate, or, in other words, kill time.

The ten-year old passed by a park, where the occasional mother or two watched their child play on the playground in the early hours of the morning. He knew that later they would be off to missions if they were ninja, or weapons production or some other war products-production task allocated to civilians.

0755 found the stoic boy inside the Hokage's office, staring quietly at the far wall while the Sandaime relaxed, taking long, languid drags on his pipe. He waited a mere ten minutes before the Hatake walked coolly through the door, but Itachi found himself growing more and more impatient as the seconds past 0800 ticked by.

**« x o x »**

Kakashi thought nothing odd of the mission summons. He was a jounin now, and he was accustomed to taking missions without his team.

Well, after the death of Obito, it was kind of inevitable.

He was still devastated – the life of the boy Hatake Kakashi never came to appreciate was snuffed out quickly like a gem plucked from his hands before he had time to grasp it properly. He couldn't appreciate what he had while it was there, and now that the shining being that was Obito was blackened and buried, Kakashi found his humanity shattering.

His father was never a stickler for the rules, but after the fateful mission where his father almost lost his life because he did not follow mission protocols to save his teammates, Kakashi became even more a paradigm for the perfect, robotic shinobi.

Living in Leaf, though, was not the place to be for a ninja who only regarded himself as a tool.

As much as Hatake Sakumo begged his son to change, the thirteen year old dug in his heels and refused to smile. The looks he saw that were given to his father were even more of a reinforcement to believe that the rules were made for a reason.

The one rule that Kakashi was becoming increasingly errant in was a little, but very important rule about being on time . . .

Before, he was not one second late, nor one second early. Namikaze Minato, his upbeat sensei, commended this skill greatly and always mentioned his punctuality when he arrived. Then he, his sensei, and his teammate Rin would always wait (somewhat) impatiently for the chronically late fourth member of their team, Uchiha Obito.

The boy would always arrive with some excuse about a cat in a tree or the road of life whilst Rin would yell at him for his lateness, and then the team would be on their way.

This pattern of normalcy ended abruptly after the mission at the Kannabi Bridge.

So it was that every mission after Obito's death, Kakashi arrived seconds later and later.

His father knew not about his progressively habitual visits to the memorial stone, and in Kakashi's (not so) humble opinion, this was all the better.

His father would be overjoyed that his stoic son actually had feelings, and would shame the Hatake name even further, if that were possible. The exuberance radiating from his father was not befit of a shinobi, and Kakashi was ashamed of that. He was envious of the Hyuuga and the Uchiha, and even the Aburame, who had such reserved and conservative clans.

The Hatake could not even be called a clan anymore, with Kakashi and Sakumo being the only bearers of the name. He heard stories of when the Hatake were a great clan, respected and known by all, and feared by many.

Such were the thoughts of the teenager as he ambled around the memorial stone. His mask was fixed firmly on his face, and not a hair was out of place. He spoke quietly to the dark thing, the wind picking up his words and tossing them into the depths of the surrounding forest.

It was 0805, and the sun was beaming brightly on the grassy glade, and the trees rustled in a peaceful wind nothing like the mission to come, and he knew implicitly that his summons were for five minutes ago. With a final word to the memorial stone, Kakashi readjusted his gloves, trailed his finger along Obito's name, and arrived at the Hokage Tower within seconds thanks to a simple but effective shunshin.

He walked through the door to the Sandaime's office, pipe smoke tickling his nose a little, and he felt the heavy eyes of the Uchiha prodigy weighing his worth.

Well, that was certainly a new occurrence.

The Hatake had heard of Uchiha Itachi, sure, but he had never met the boy. Kakashi glanced with his lone eye at the other doujutsu user, and noted the boy's erect stance, his perfectly calm façade, and the pretty and aristocratic features that made up his face.

Whereas Kakashi was lithe and solid, Itachi was gaunt and lanky. Even though he was ten, Itachi had deep groves underneath his eyes, and his nose was straight and regal. His cheekbones were fine, his chin pointed, and his neck and fingers were thin and ghost-like. Kakashi noted the hollowness in the boy's black eyes, and the way his hair, even in the low ponytail, swished like cloth in water. His breathing and his movements were slow, graceful, calculated, and lethal. There was a refined finesse there that Kakashi just did not have.

Kakashi, in comparison to the Uchiha, was almost the exact opposite. With round cheeks, full eyes, and toned, tanned skin, there was a sturdiness in his built that was made for the front lines. He was not like a sneaky cat, but more like a stalking panther, muscles always full and tensed, ready to pounce on its pray.

The similarities between the two, Kakashi noted, were intrinsically basic. They were both quiet, calculating, pensive, efficient, and brutally honest.

Except for the fact that, the Hatake instantly noted, the Uchiha was bound to be far more politically correct, and was thus fifty times slyer than the Hatake could ever attempt to be whilst navigating the adult world. It arose from his position in his clan, for sure.

Itachi seemed to be more the kind of boy to be an orchestrator, playing the puppet-master whilst the other humans assumed the roles of marionettes – puppets that he could control the strings to. Very deft, like a dance.

Kakashi could tell all of this about the Uchiha with one look-over. It was actually kind of creepy, he thought quickly, as he turned his gaze away from the Uchiha. He was discreet in the motion, casting it off as a smooth transition from scrutiny of his teammate to attention to the Hokage.

In Kakashi's opinion, there was nothing that a little blackmail couldn't fix. Or some other more . . . direct approaches.

The ten-year old was even more of a tool than the Hatake! Well, Kakashi be damned. Sakumo, too.

It _was_ possible!

"Alright," the Sandaime began abruptly, breaking both boys out of their respective reveries. "I'm looking for efficiency." He looked weary momentarily, as if sending two young boys behind enemy lines was unnatural, though he shook the feeling off with practiced ease. His eyes were sharp again, and he continued, his voice and posture stony and rigid. "This is why I paired the two of you up. You both have the required skill sets for this mission, and as children"—slight falter, but barely noticeable to anyone else less observant than the Hatake and Uchiha—"you will be able to infiltrate Iwa all the better."

The Hokage nodded to the two young boys, who both got what he meant – they were both ruthless on the battlefield, and incredibly stealthy when the need arose, but as young shinobi, their size gave them an extra level of stealth.

"This is not just an infiltration mission," the Hokage said gravely. He looked the two boys in the eyes, smiled a weary smile. "This is also an assassination mission." He grabbed a sheaf of papers. They rustled in his hands as he handed them to the Hatake. "You do not have one target. You do not have two. Nor three, nor four." The Hokage slumped and sighed. He looked at the ten- and the thirteen-year olds, sadness seeping in unrestrained waves. The boys did nothing, merely stared at the Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen. They truly were the picturesque shinobi, despite their youth.

"No . . ." he continued. "You are to destroy this entire village."

The leader picked up another paper, a map, and pointed to a small dot in Iwa. "This is where you will be going. Itachi, your mastery of the Sharingan will allow you to cast a genjutsu on the citizens of this town. From there, Iwa recruiters will see your talent with several other ninja, and they will take you to this training city here." Fingers tapped on a cross slightly northwest of the dot. "After a few days they'll bring in the final batch of ninja, and they will send you all to an academy. This is the purpose of your mission."

Sarutobi Hiruzen took a drag from his pipe, and puffed. His eyes traveled somewhere beyond the walls of his office.

"Your targets . . . are all of the students and jounin at the academy. If you can, you are to take out as many chuunin and other jounin that are in the town as well. Then, when things get hectic, you are to get out." He paused, let the information sink in. Then, "Itachi-kun, Kakashi-kun. This is a very important mission." His brown eyes hardened, almost reluctantly though. They found their way to the stack of papers in Kakashi's hand. "There's more information in the debriefing in that packet. This is just the basics. But . . . you have to understand that this force is their last resort. They won't be expecting spies in their batch of genin, and that gives you the great advantage of underestimation. If you can do this . . . the war might very well end within the year." Another slow drag. Another smoke ring.

"Yes . . ." he said, wistfully. "Hopefully that will be the end."

Once more, his eyes flipped. The leadership was taking its toll, and Kakashi could see that as conflicted and disconcerted as the Sandaime was on this mission, it was definitely the right call.

He couldn't blame the man for the sadness of the necessity of all this . . . destruction. Calamity. Murder.

War – the Hatake's face was blank, not even a lip twitch beneath the mask. _War_, he thought dully, was really an awful thing. He was a tool for Konohagakure, but even then, this kind of destruction on a global scale was . . . distasteful at best.

Kakashi glanced over to Itachi, and they shared a look. Itachi inclined his head, and Kakashi gave a short, decisive nod.

Understanding and kinship began to blossom between the two shinobi.

"Don't fail this mission, boys. You are dismissed."

**ღ Chapter 1 : End ****ღ**

I just . . . really love Itachi. I love him with Hinata, with Sakura, with Kakashi (obviously . . .), with Naruto, with Shisui, with Kushina (yeah, you heard me right), and . . . well, yeah. It's a bit obscene, my fascination with his character. He's just . . . so damn shippable! Haha – does anyone have that problem with a character? I feel kind of like that with Sakura, too, because I love her with Hinata (yes, yes), Kushina (quite true . . . I am bizarre, I am well aware of this, thankyouverymuch), Kakashi, Naruto, Itachi, Neji, Gaara . . . and I read a good fic about her and Kankuro, once, many many years ago.

Speaking of which, I've only read one good story with Itachi and Shisui . . . and it was never completed. /sigh/ If anyone has any recs, I'd love to hear from you. (:

Anyway. An introduction, of sorts. Hope this satisfies you – I'm not disgusted by it, and I am actually quite proud to be writing this at all, so. (: Thanks all, in advance, for the reviews I know will be headed my way, yes? (; I'm only concerned because I'm terribly rusty, and I don't think that this is all that consistent. What do you guys think?

Next time, we'll maybe see some Kushina and Minato, or some Shisui and Itachi, perhaps. I haven't decided. Though I do kind of want to introduce Itachi and Kakashi more, considering they're the main focus of this story . . . We'll see.

And this first chapter is probably going to be the longest. Though here's a review poll: What do you guys think? Should I do oneshots, or should I actually make this more of a connecting story? The plot literally just came out of nowhere, because I was just expecting this story to be sort of a _Plot? What Plot? _romance fluffiness sort of deal. /:

Anyway . . .

Reviews, critiques, flames—wanted, accepted, needed.

love xx  
Jayme  
aka  
[Lucid-Complex]

_Song of the Day: Boston, Augustana_

**Uploaded: 4-9-13  
Updated: None  
****Naruto © Masashi Kishimoto  
Story © Lucid-Complex  
****DO NOT REDISTRIBUTE WITHOUT PERMISSION**


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